Tuesday, February 28, 2017

I started this month mentioning something relating to the World War II-era German military (Wehrmacht) and in particular, the Germany Army (Heer). I'm finishing this month on a similar note. For reasons I cannot fathom, I have been obsessed with the World War II German-era Tiger II or Königstiger (King Tiger in Anglo-American English). In idle moments I find myself regularly imaging myself commanding one such tank in a final futile battle somewhere in western Europe towards war's end destroying a lot of American (esp. M4 Shermans) and British tanks (esp. Cromwells) and tank destroyers (such as M10 Wolverines) before being forced to surrender after running out of ammo. I have a strong feeling this is a metaphor for something. I sure hope I'm not engaged in a lost cause at present and don't realize it. Below is a sample of the tank to which I refer. It was the best tank in the world up into the 1950s and some are still being used in the Syrian Civil War right now as a measure of how great they were and still are.

Sunday, February 26, 2017

Usually studios put out trailers, previews, and advertisements for upcoming movies soon to be released. However, this is something new to me: a nearly-five-minute segment of the soon-to-be-released movie Alien Covenant, intended to hook audiences with a more powerful connection to story and characters. It works for me! I am looking forward to this movie's release this coming spring. As goes with these movies ongoing themes and patterns, there will be few survivors of this crew.

Saturday, February 25, 2017

Today I took a break from my regular responsibilities and took mom out to see the post-storm damage to Halcon Road in rural unincorporated Atascadero from the opposite side of the Salinas River (east side) as we did last month from the west side HERE.

Friday, February 24, 2017

This evening early, the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen reinstalled the headstone of the late Louise Judd at the residence of her son, our Dennis, in his backyard given the stone is no longer useful at the locality of her interment. We gathered around our friend and moved the surprisingly heavy stone into its new resting place. Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Thursday, February 23, 2017

This is the balance of my Thursday night church home group family which I have christened the "Self Help" Gang. Thursday nights are the high point of my week which I look forward to from week to week. Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Sunday, February 19, 2017

Today I worked parking for Vino Vice, Inc. at the Rhone Rangers event at Broken Earth Winery in rural, unincorporated Paso Robles, CA. While working there, I injured my left knee fairly badly and have turned up severely gimpy as a result. I hope I can make a full recovery from this sans medical assistance. Undoubtedly, this injury is a reminder that I need to lose weight as 300 pounds is putting too much strain on my knees. This merely reinforces and adds urgency to my weight loss and physical fitness goals for this spring/summer. It also doesn't help that I'm 46 years old and no "spring chicken." Being fat and forty-something isn't for wimps.

Saturday, February 18, 2017

Today I was over at the coast with my brother by another mother, Mike. We stopped at San Simeon State Park at the turnout along Highway One and I captured this image of strong onshore winds created blowing sud balls which skittered along the sand. Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

I amn extremely happy to have my independence and cherish it. However, I grow weary of maintaining sexual temperance and living the celibate life which is an unnatural state of being for me. I also find myself increasingly craving female companionship and physicality. However, I'm not willing to settle for Ms. Right-Now and lose my independence to somebody unworthy of me. I chose to wait for God's will to reveal itself to me, I await His choice and solution.

Saturday, February 11, 2017

Today I needed another break from everything going on in my life. I had the privilege of sharing this second Kim Day of the year to date fellow members of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Unlike last month's excursion which ended up at San Simeon Creek Inlet after visiting other localities down the coast, today we solely visited San Simeon Creek Inlet. A strong Pacific storm had just gone through and churned up the beach, making beach-combing and rockhounding much more productive. What follows is my report in pictures.

Dennis the Menace

I found this brecciated jasper with chalcedony and quartz banding cobble.

Rockin' Ron and the E-man.

Brecciated Jasper with quartz and a small quartz crystal-lined cavity partly sanded down by wave action on the beach.

Highway One bridge

Sea Gulls pre-disturbance

Sea Gulls disturbed

This is probably a Hearst Ranch cow (#51) who ended up in a creek during the last storm and got swept out to sea and drowned during the last storm. Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Friday, February 10, 2017

For the past couple of days an escalating crisis has developed at Oroville Dam's spillway in Northern California. A hole developed in the spillway earlier this week and the volume of water being released from the dam continues to make the breach greater. The release of water has been out of necessity so that the lake not overtop the dam as a result of the volume of water pouring into the lake behind the dam. As a result, the hole in the spillway and adjacent breach in its wall continue to rapidly expand in extant allowing the adjacent mountainside to be de facto hydraulically mined with the spillway breach water acting as the monitor. Overnight tonight the lake should reach 100% capacity and then the emergency spillway might be used for the first time ever. Stay tuned!

Thursday, February 9, 2017

This is the only extant public footage we have of the late Anthony Ray Riso driving his reproduction 1965 Shelby Cobra 427r. Two Saturdays ago, he lost control of this vehicle while driving southbound on Highway 101 at Highway 46 West. His high performance built-for-speed racing car left the road at high speed and tore out part of the guard rail for the 101 Freeway overpass of Highway 46. It then rolled several times and struck a tree, bursting into flames and killing the 32 year-old driver. Passersby vainly attempted to free him from his four-point harness. Riso was married and a father of two children. Below is footage of him in the car as viewed from a residence in Paso Robles, CA, where he lived. I am always haunted by such things since I lost my own father in a tragic workplace accident when I was 15 years old. Such stories remind me of the fragility and ephemeral nature of life.

Wednesday, February 8, 2017

The first segment of "Shooting Stars" released by Aussie electronica band Bag Raiders in 2009 has only come to my attention in the past month or so as the musical accompaniment to various internet memes. Tonight I finally found out the name of the tune and who produced it. I'm fairly certain this song was nowhere nearly as popular in 2009 as it is now and that largely due to the lack of exposure to an otherwise timelessly good tune. The video features more than one surprisingly traditional and wholesome moral lessons (one celebrating homosocial friendship and the other celebrating monogamous heterosexual relationships as juxtaposed with man-whoring which is presented early on as unsatisfying) despite the apparently inferred promiscuous early scene in the apartment bedroom. This is reinforced when the two male friends enter a club and see all sorts of women but find them undesirable as they all hide their true faces behind masks which is obviously a metaphor. They find true love only after disaster strikes and the world collapses around them and they are reunited with two women they saw at the club whose true faces are now revealed to them to be beautiful and wholesome. Aside from loving the sound and beat of this track, I love the dreamy atmosphere of this video which reminds me of Alan Parson's Project's "Don't Answer Me".

Tuesday, February 7, 2017

This year I enjoyed Super Bowl LI (51) more than any such game in many years. However, I noted with some slight dismay the continued trend of not as many good and funny ads being featured during the game's various commercial breaks. Below are my favorites this year in no particular order.

Monday, February 6, 2017

Last night, Lady Gaga not merely lived up to the hype of her Super Bowl LI halftime performance but crushed it exceeding it with this fine live non-lip-synched performance. Enjoy the initial patriotic medly performance followed by a medley of her greatest hits accompanied by a dazzling visual performance sans technical flops and wardrobe malfunctions such as have plagued other recent Super Bowl halftime shows.

Sunday, February 5, 2017

Today into tonight's Super Bowl 51 was a game for the ages, by super bowl or playoff game or regular season game or preseason game standards of greatness. For me the simple takeaway were the virtues of patience, persistence, and perseverance. Tom Brady, love him or hate him, put on a clinic showing the value of those virtues. He seemed to be on his back all game long but kept getting back up off turf and willing himself and his team to victory over a younger and healthier and more energetic team.

Saturday, February 4, 2017

I just realized my computer monitor no longer has a pink hue to it as
was the case with it before. I also forgot that I moved my radioactive
mineral specimen outside wondering if I needed to store it further away
and the two events coincide in time now that I think about it. #glowinthedarkKim

Thursday, February 2, 2017

Earlier last month I encountered this image on Google Images while searching for something else Wehrmacht-related which I can no longer recall. Anywho, I found this image strangely compelling and powerful. This image was shot in Russia in 1942 and shows a German soldier being treated by comrades after taking a high energy hit from a piece of metal (bullet or shrapnel) which amputated his left arm which rests in the foreground. It is highly probable none of the these men pictured survived the conflict. What a waste of fine infantry and humanity. If anybody can tell me more about this as a result of their own prior knowledge I am quite welcome to more information. Photographer unknown.